


The One With The Canola Oil

by ArvenaPeredhel



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Humor, M/M, crackfic, this is funny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:40:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23125642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArvenaPeredhel/pseuds/ArvenaPeredhel
Summary: What do you do when your unfathomable need to have sex with your husband causes a regional shortage in cooking oil? Lie about it, obviously.
Relationships: Fingon | Findekáno/Maedhros | Maitimo
Comments: 22
Kudos: 89





	The One With The Canola Oil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Astaldont](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astaldont/gifts).



> This is utter crackfic but I love it nonetheless.

"No," Findekáno says, and his voice is bright and eager and his words are slurring against one another. "No, that is not the strangest thing I have done to preserve our secret."

"Oh?" Maitimo asks. He is significantly less drunk than his husband, though he has had the greater share of their bottle of _nenvalaina_ \- where Findekáno is giddy and teetering back and forth between exhaustion and desperation, he is calm, and comfortably warm, and he knows his eyes are molten silver and his face is flushed but he cannot bring himself to care. His husband, after all, will perpetually stop and stare at him when he is like this, breath catching and lips parting. "What is the strangest thing, then?"

"It was - it was _horrible,_ and it was _all your fault,"_ Findekáno tells him, leaning forward and trying to look annoyed. He props one elbow against the corner of the table they are seated at, and nearly misses and falls on his face. "You _owe_ me, Russo."

"I do, eh?" he asks, and he is smirking. "Tell me how."

Findekáno groaned. "It started with an absolutely _awful_ conversation I had to have with my father..."

* * *

"Ah, good," Nolofinwë said, glancing up from several stacks of paper. "I am glad you found the time to join me, Findekáno. Please, sit." He gestured with one hand at the chair opposite his own, and watched as his son settled into it. 

For his part, Findekáno was nervous - he could not imagine _why_ he had been summoned to his father's private study as if he were a child, and Nolofinwë's ever-inscrutable expression lent him no confidence whatsoever. _If I am lucky, it is something small, like carrying a message or presiding over a feast,_ he thought. _If I am_ un _lucky, however?_

"I had a rather pressing question for you," his father continued, and he jolted out of the mire of his own thoughts to focus yet again on the uncertain problem before him. Nolofinwë was peering through a stack of papers, and drew one out to set on the last bare patch of table.

"And that question would be?" he asked, hoping the nervousness was gone from his voice.

"Why is it that every time you visit the eastern marches in general and Himring in especial, that whole region's oil imports skyrocket as soon as you have departed?" 

Of all the questions Findekáno could have thought his father would ask, _this_ was not one of them. His heart felt as if it had dropped right out of his chest and then through every floor of Barad Eithel until it was burrowing earnestly through the earth. 

_Ai, ercanyë,_ he thought. _What do I_ say? _What do I_ do? _Oh, I am ruined, I have to think of_ something, anything, _I am - I am_ \- 

_\- I am making a sound like a teakettle. Oh, Eru, I hope he did not hear it. Or notice the fact that I violently flinched._

_Or realize that I am_ still making that Valardamned sound, _oh, someone shoot me._

He broke off the noise he had been making with a series of forced coughs, and then somehow willed his face into something resembling a typical eldarin expression.

"I didn't know about this," he said, while every muscle anchored to his cheekbones was screaming at him in protest and his heart was beating faster than any drummer could match. "Tell me more."

_Oh, this is the least convincing I have ever been in my life!_

Nolofinwë's eyebrow rose. "You don't know why _every time you visit,_ suddenly the official import records indicate the resupply of several months' worth of cooking oil."

"No," Findekáno said, and it was barely a word. "I have no idea what you mean." _It's certainly_ not _because my husband and I need it to ensure neither of us are injured in vigorous lovemaking. No. That is absolutely not the case._

His father's eyebrow rose even higher. "You don't."

_He doesn't sound convinced. Ai, muk, he doesn't sound convinced at all!_

"No?" he tried again. _I hope my face does not look stupid. I am_ sure _it looks stupid._

Nolofinwë sighed. "You cannot think of anything, any reason, why this might be the case?"

"Why do you need to know?" Findekáno asked him. This, at least, sounded vaguely normal. _If your basis for comparison is a sheep._

"Well, for one thing, it's an odd pattern for taxation," his father explained. "And for another - Himring is an isolated fortress, and every caravan and transport from the lowlands is dangerous. If I have merchants and their hired guards risking their lives for oil, I want to know why."

"They - I mean - they need - they have to _eat?"_ Findekáno tried lamely, wincing. _That is a very stupid way of putting it!_

"They do," Nolofinwë agreed. "And I would like to know what is keeping them from that."

"How do you know it's not just having extra visitors?" _I mean, it's_ not, _but_ he _doesn't need to know that..._

"Are you and your whole retinue _and_ the whole of Himring itself eating nothing but fried tubers for every meal?"

"Ah," Findekáno said lamely. "No."

"I thought not." Nolofinwë was unflappable as ever, though there was something sparking in his eyes. _He's furious with me,_ Findekáno thought. _Oh Halls. I am dead._

"Atya - !" he began, only to be interrupted. 

"You _must_ know something. Anything. Anything at all."

"I..." he said, and groaned. "Fine. All right. I think I may have some answers." _What are you going to_ say _to him, you fool? Have you thought of that?!_ No! _You are sitting there like a statue, puzzling over nothing! Think!_

"Really," his father said, sitting up and instantly becoming more attentive. Findekáno wondered what, exactly, had triggered this transformation. He took a deep breath, and opened his mouth - 

"I bathe in cooking oil while I am there," he said, thoughtlessly, easily, without thinking about a single sound coming out of his head. "Every time I need to clean myself, it is with water first and then the oil."

Nolofinwë's jaw dropped. For once, he looked truly surprised.

"You - _what?"_

"I mean it!" Findekáno said, the words rushed and awkward and slamming into themselves. "Truly!"

His father's face turned several successive shades of red, beginning with crimson and moving into duller tones. 

"You..." he said, and took a very deep breath and sat back in his chair. "You bathe in cooking oil."

"Yes."

"I - in - by all the Valar, _why?!"_

Findekáno winced again, but he was too panicked by now to think clearly. "It's good for my skin?"

"You say that as though you're uncertain of the veracity of that statement."

"I'm not!" he protested. _I am,_ he acquiesced to himself.

"Either it is true or it isn't," Nolofinwë said. "That it is good for your skin, I mean. But - why did you not say anything when I first asked you? You cannot claim to know nothing when you are the cause of the shortage."

"I didn't know it was that much of a problem," Findekáno admitted truthfully, not lying for the first time since this dreadful talk had begun. "I had no idea. They never said so to me."

"But you were _bathing_ in - oh, you know what you have been doing." His father shook his head and groaned. "I am almost disinclined to believe you, you know."

"About the oil being good for your skin?"

"About the oil being used for bathing at all."

Findekáno froze. Muk. _He must believe this! Else he might guess at the truth!_

"Well," he said, with considerable difficulty, "I am not lying."

"Prove it to me, then." 

Findekáno felt his mouth go dry. "What."

"Prove it," his father repeated, "and I will let the matter drop."

"But - Atya, I can't - !"

"Why not?"

 _Because I have never_ done _it before, and it sounds disgusting!_ "Because it only works when it's cold!"

Nolofinwë inclined his head towards the window. "It is winter now."

"But Himring is in the mountains!" 

"And we are not?" 

Nausea was rising up in Findekáno's gut as he realized that he was, in fact, truly going to have to subject himself to a bath in pure cooking oil. T _his is the worst decision of my life,_ he thought, and retched, and hoped his father did not notice, and feared that he did. _Damn._

"You are really going to make me do this, aren't you," he said, and then gasped when he realized he'd spoken aloud.

"I am," his father said, sounding distinctly pleased with himself. "I certainly am. After all, if it is truly good for the skin, we all ought to do it." He gave his son a sharp look, and Findekáno felt as if he were being tricked somehow.

"I... fine," he said, shrugging and raising his hands in defeat. "Fine, I shall do it."

"Please do," Nolofinwë told him. "I look forward to witnessing the results of such a costly endeavor."

Findekáno grimaced, trying to smile, and awkwardly got to his feet and left the study.

* * *

"So what did you do?" Maitimo asked. He was grinning now, thanks both to the story and to his husband's continued descent into incoherent intoxication.

"What do you think I did?" Findekáno answered. _"Inyë ércala_ \- I did it!"

"You bathed in cooking oil."

"In - in, ah, in _sulca_ seed oil."

Maitimo set his cup down, very nearly bursting out into laughter. "And how did it go?" 

"Miserably!" Findekáno cried. "It was _awful!_ Slick, and tepid, and it clung to my skin - to _all_ of my skin, Russandol - and I was leaving stains on all my clothes for _days!"_

"But you proved your point. Our secret is safe."

"You owe me _quite_ a lot for that," his husband grumbled.

"Perhaps I might make it up to you by joining you the next time this fancy strikes you?"

"No," Findekáno said. _"No."_

"It might not be so horrible the next time," Maitimo retorted. His thoughts were fixed on might-have-beens, on what-ifs, and particularly on what his husband might have looked like while drenched in oil and gleaming in the lamplight. 

"It will be horrible no matter what!"

"If you say so," Maitimo shrugged. "If you say so."

Findekáno made a rude gesture and took another drink.


End file.
